Kasich's Las Vegas speech encourages investment in Ohio

Saturday

Mar 29, 2014 at 12:01 AMMar 29, 2014 at 10:30 PM

LAS VEGAS – Gov. John Kasich finished his speech to about 300 mostly wealthy, Jewish, Republican donors from all across the United State today with "in Ohio, we're no longer a flyover, Sheldon." The "Sheldon" he addressed several times during his speech here is casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, whose Venetian hotel and casino is hosting the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual spring conference.

Joe Vardon, The Columbus Dispatch

LAS VEGAS – Gov. John Kasich finished his speech today to about 300 mostly wealthy, Jewish Republican donors from all across the United States with “in Ohio, we’re no longer a flyover, Sheldon.”

The “Sheldon” he addressed several times during his speech here is casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, whose Venetian hotel and casino is hosting the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual spring conference. The event could have implications for the 2016 Republican presidential primary, observers say, because of the $93 million Adelson gave to Republican-leaning causes during the 2012 election.

“We do want you to come. We want you to invest,” Kasich said in closing and apparently speaking again to Adelson. “We want you to get to know us. Because Ohio really is the heart of it all.”

The conference drew national media attention not only because of Adelson, but also because of the others who spoke. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — two names often mentioned as possible presidential candidates in 2016 — also spoke today, as did former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush spoke Thursday night at a private dinner in an airport hangar.

If, as some had speculated, the speakers were here jockeying for Adelson’s support for a hypothetical presidential campaign, Kasich’s tack was far different from the others'. Kasich, who is up for re-election this year and has said repeatedly that keeping his governorship is his only goal, delivered a speech identical in concept to dozens he has given throughout Ohio in the past few months.

Kasich spoke of balancing budgets and job creation; he talked about expanding Medicaid without mentioning the words Medicaid or expansion; and touched on topics that generally draw people’s attention but rarely elicit applause, such as reforming education, battling prescription-drug abuse and “helping people in the shadows.”

Perhaps the lone difference between this speech and those he has given across Ohio was that Kasich repeatedly inserted Adelson’s name, as if speaking directly to him.

“It’s a nothingburger,” Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matt Brooks said of Kasich’s Adelson references, downplaying them. “People were listening to the substance of the speech.”

Adelson, who contributed about $11,400 to the Republican Governors Association's Ohio fund for Kasich in 2010, sat next to Kasich at lunch before his speech.

Adelson also walked into the room just as Christie began his speech but didn’t attend Walker’s or Bolton’s talks.

While Kasich made no mention of anything related to foreign policy until he was asked about it in a question-and-answer session, the other speakers focused on it.

“We cannot have a world where our friends are unsure if we will be with them and our enemies unsure if we are going to be against them,” Christie said. “In New Jersey, no one needs to wonder if I am for them or against them.”

Walker said in his speech that foreign policy is “not an area governors typically look at,” but he said that Ronald Reagan’s breaking of the air-traffic-controllers’ union in 1981 “sent a message around the world.”

It “sent an even more powerful message to our adversaries that if you mess with the United States of America, there will be swift and certain action, and I believe we ought to be strong like that,” Walker said.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to address the conference at dinner tonight.

jvardon@dispatch.com

@joevardon

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